Facebook may be losing youngsters in West, but it is still cool amongst Indian youth

By
Jibu EliasFeb. 15, 2018, 11:46 a.m.

India has over 82 million Facebook users of the 18-24 age group

It seems like Facebook's spell of troubles isn't getting over anytime soon. Earlier this week research firm eMarketer reported that Facebook is losing young users in the West at a faster pace than previously expected.

The firm reported that in 2017 alone, Facebook has lost over 2.8 million US users under the age of 25. In the UK, things aren't any different, as The Guardian forecasts that around 700,000 teenagers and young adults will leave the social media site in 2018.

Over the last few years, Facebook has lost its ‘cool’ with teens and young adults flocking to Snapchat and Facebook-owned Instagram for their daily social media fix. Facebook seems to be gradually becoming the social media platform for the older people. And this could be a matter of serious concern for the company.

Losing traction amongst the younger crowd is a threat to Facebook’s business model as advertisers prefer to target young spenders over older ones.

Facebook has been trying to keep the kids from leaving by bringing in Snapchat-like features and by revamping the news feed completely, with Zuckerberg pledging to spend this year “making sure that time spent on Facebook is time well spent”.

However, one corner of the globe where Facebook can find some relief is India, as young adults remain the biggest active demographic on the platform.

According to Statista, as of January 2017, India has over 82 million Facebook users of the 18-24 age group. Currently, Facebook has over 240 million active users in India, and the potential to acquire more young Indians remains promising.

One of the major reason for this reverse trend in India has to do a lot with country's high young population. The recent UN Population Fund report titled 'The power of 1.8 billion' says that “there are more young people in India than ever before, creating an unprecedented potential for economic and social progress”.

Currently, India has more than 50% of its population below the age of 25. Additionally, the lack of internet usage amongst the older demographics and lack of formal education adds to the factor that much of the older Indian population is absent from Facebook.

On the other hand, the number of Instagram and Snapchat users in India are rising. And if the same trend reflects in India, it may not take that long for Indian youth to follow their western counterparts.